Abstract

Abstract: This talk will provide a brief overview of Bitcoin and discuss why it has been a fascinating new area of security research spanning crypto, security economics, game theory, and anonymity. A few case studies will highlight some of the surprising new applications and research findings, as well as discussing why Bitcoin is far more limited in its current version that is commonly assumed.

Bio: Joseph Bonneau is a fellow at the Center For Information Technology Policy, Princeton. He is focused on web security, authentication, and TLS , though his past research has spanned side-channel cryptanalysis, protocol verification, software obfuscation, and privacy in social networks.

He completed his PhD in 2012 with the Security Group of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, supervised by Professor Ross Anderson and funded as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. His PhD thesis formalises the analysis of human-chosen distributions of secrets, specifically passwords and PINs.

His background is in computer science, math, and cryptography, in which he earned his BS and MS from Stanford. He’s worked on cryptography and security at Google, Cryptography Research, Inc and as a private consultant.